


Balm

by sesquipedalianMarquis



Series: The Meraad Chronicles [18]
Category: Dragon Age (Tabletop RPG), Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: ? - Freeform, Caring, Companionship, Found Family?, Friendship, Gen, Grooming, Horn Balm, Horns, Introspection, POV Third Person, Platonic Affection, Qunari Culture and Customs, Short, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Sweet, Tal-Vashoth Culture and Customs, Trust, Vashoth, Vulnerability, getting there anways, i think it counts?, the fruit vendor? secretly ben-hassrath.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 11:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17466401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sesquipedalianMarquis/pseuds/sesquipedalianMarquis
Summary: Meraad purchases some horn balm. He offers it to Turaz and reflects on trust and vulnerability.





	Balm

Meraad’s attached. He’s attached as fuck and it’s bad. After a near-decade of doing his own thing all over Thedas, it’s almost too much to have someone else there all the time. The company of mercenaries he’s used to, but the long stretches of solitude on the road were a constant that’s gone now. He misses the utter quiet of it sometimes. But the thought of leaving Turaz at the next merc company, or the next city she takes a liking to, the thought alone of continuing without her makes him recoil.

 

“Here.”  
Turaz gives him a look, spots the pot in his hand.  
“What?”  
“It’s horn balm. I got it while you were bartering with the fruit vendor,” he explains.  
“Horn balm,” she echoes, with that face she makes when her memory’s being jogged.  
“Yeah. You can go without, but it’s better with. And your horns look like they could use some.”  
She takes the pot and scoops some on her fingers, rubs it into her horns.  
“Smells spicy.”  
“That’s ‘cause it’s quality. Don’t get it in your eyes. Or your mouth.”

A silence ensues while Turaz rubs the stuff into her horns. Meraad, to avoid being awkward, picks up his knife and cleans the dirt out from under his claws. He’s spent most of the money he had on balm reserves. They’re heavy in his pack, but so hard to get anywhere further south. Getting them this far down is already a miracle.

 

Two days after, they’re ambushed. The fucker that tries to grab Turaz from the back gets her backswept horns in the face. Meraad is hit by a fierce wave of pride. After the fight, he offers to wipe the blood off her horns before it crusts and she accepts.

 

A month or so later, she strains her shoulder swinging that morning-staff of hers. Meraad offers her the balm that evening when they’re camping out next to a rock outcropping, because she’s been itching. There’s patches in the skin around her horns that look darker than they should and the horns themselves are looking dull.

“I know your shoulder’s a bit fucked,” he says as he holds out the pot, “so I’ll put it on for you if you want.”

He gets a calculating look. They’ve been travelling for barely half a year, but he’s taken blows for her, she’s saved him from death. And he’s getting over his issue with touching mages. Well, this specific mage.

She nods once, scoots over. Sits next to his legs, facing him, and lowers her head. Her forehead is a hand-span from his chest. If she leaned forward, she’d bonk her head to the wyvern fang around his neck. It’s been almost nine years since he’s done this for someone.

Meraad scoops the balm on his fingers and works it into the solid skin where her horns curve from her skull. Careful with his claws, because he never remembers to blunt them until he’s in a place where he should’ve taken care of that earlier. If he’s scratching her, Turaz doesn’t complain. The vulnerability of it strikes him like lightning. It would be simple to yank her horns. He could snap her neck in his calloused hands and it would be easy. And she’s just… sitting there, letting him close.

Meraad sighs and imagines slapping himself out of it. He’s taken an arrow to the chest to save her, a sword to the tit, an arrow to the neck, of course she fucking trusts him. It sits weirdly with him anyways, a saarebas willing to bare her neck and put her skull in his hands, but this is what it’s like now. Up close, she smells a little like the lightning she throws around, sharp and burnt, like a reminder of the power she can spark from her fingers. Kid can toss fire around with barely a thought, and he’s just sat here rubbing balm into her horns.

The thought hits him that he’s just as vulnerable as she is. Her skull is under his palms, yes, but she’s right in front of him, could stab him right in the ribs, put a hand to his stomach and fry him inside out. And he’s been for a while, hasn’t he? Letting her take watch while he sleeps, turning his back to her in a fight. And maybe it’s less weird for Turaz to trust him like that if he considers that he does trust her too, with his life, every day.

Maybe it’s not that bad.

**Author's Note:**

> "morning-staff" means shes got a big stick with a heavy morning star end. kinda like if a long spear and a maul had a baby, and that baby was also useful for casting magic. shh, dont tell anyone that last bit.


End file.
